If Twitter is part of your social media marketing strategy, then you’ve probably noticed that there are many tools available to help you manage and optimize your account. It may seem a bit overwhelming to figure out which tools to use in your business, so we’re sharing some of our top recommendations here.
Experiment with a few tools (most paid tools offer a free trial period) and focus on which options help you reach your Twitter marketing goals.
Tools to Manage Your Account and Feed(s)
Dashboards and Schedulers:
1. Buffer App (a favorite for anyone just starting out on Twitter; the free plan is all you need)
- Free and paid plans
- Schedule Tweets
- Analyze Tweets
- “Suggested” posts for content curation
2. Hootsuite (a little more of a learning curve than the Buffer App, but great features for managing a larger account)
- Free plan if you have fewer than five social profiles to manage
- Schedule Tweets
- Identify and grow an audience
- Create custom Twitter reports
- Track hashtags, mentions, and more
- Save Tweets as templates
3. TweetDeck (great for monitoring several feeds at once)
- A free desktop management tool
- Schedule Tweets
- Follow multiple account Feeds as well as Lists in real-time
Miscellaneous Tools:
4. Tweriod – find the best time to Tweet
5. Bit.ly – set up a free account to automatically shorten your links (and then track clicks on those links)
6. Manageflitter (free and paid options) – easily unfollow users who are not following you back
7. Crowdfire App – formerly Just UnFollow (free and paid options) – another option to quickly unfollow users
Tools to Find and Connect with People
8. Twellow – a directory for Twitter profiles searchable by topic or location
9. WeFollow – a directory of prominent users, searchable by topic/interest
10. Twitter Search and Advanced Search – Twitter’s own search option a powerful built-in feature. Search for users based on keywords, location, account size, and more parameters
11. Twitter Chats – search for Chats (real-time conversations/events based on a unique hashtag) on topics or events that align with your business or target audience. Use http://chatsalad.com/ to find Chats.
12. Industry Influencers’ Followers – go to the Twitter Profile of an industry expert/influencer, click on their Followers, and follow any that may fall into your target audience
13. Other Users’ Public Lists – go to the Twitter Profile of a user that may attract your target audience or connect with industry peers, check out their Lists, and follow any accounts of interest (click on “Members” when you are viewing a List for a quick way to connect)
More Advanced Tools to Manage Connections
There are a variety of paid options to manage Twitter connections, and focus on building deeper relationships with influencers, top followers and more. Here are 3 popular tools:
14. Commun.it (free and paid versions)
15. SocialBro (free trial, paid options)
16. AgoraPulse (free trial, paid options)
Tools to Find (“Curate”) Content
Sharing helpful, useful content that interests your target audience is important to your Twitter success. This means that most of your Tweets should be something other than a self-promotional post.
The following tools will help you find content to share.
17. Topsy – find popular or trending Tweets based on keywords or hashtags
18. Hashtags.org – find popular hashtags
19. Hashtagify.me – find popular hashtags
20. Paper.li – curate content manually or automatically, and then present results in a newspaper-like layout.
21. Twitter Hashtag Searches – check out the trending topics on twitter.com or search for a specific hashtag in the Twitter search bar. You can save your Twitter searches for future reference.
22. Industry Experts / Influencers’ Public Lists – subscribe to a public List on Twitter that shares content that would interest your Followers. Then re-Tweet interesting posts.
Two tools to help you easily share visual content on Twitter:
23. Pablo by Buffer App – (for paid Buffer App users) – quickly create image quotes and then share/schedule through your buffer or Twitter account.
24. TwitShot – share an image in your Tweet from any link (where an image is available). A quick way to add visual content to your Tweets.
So there you have it – 24 tools that will help you manage and grow your Twitter account. Check out a few and let me know which ones are your favorites. Have any to add to the list? Just let me know!
And if a Twitter strategy still seems a little overwhelming, then let us help! Contact us for a free, 15- minute consultation on how we can help you put a custom Twitter strategy in place today!
About Terry League